


Here There Be Hockey DnD Players

by vestigialstell



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Humor, M/M, light murder, the adventure zone!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-24 01:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14944814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vestigialstell/pseuds/vestigialstell
Summary: Flower, Geno, and Sidney accept a mission offer described as 'the last job you'll ever have to work'.It goes as well as could be expected.





	Here There Be Hockey DnD Players

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shmorgas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shmorgas/gifts).



> Thank you for the awesome prompts shmorgas! 
> 
> SPOILER WARNING: for the first arc of The Adventure Zone: Balance

Sid bounced in the back of the wagon, cursing as he bit his tongue. The blood in his mouth ruined the taste of his peanut and raspberry spread sandwich. 

“Risky business,” Flower said cheerfully. He leaned back against the driver’s bench, the book he was reading flopping out of his hand as the wagon jolted again. “Geno! Quit fucking driving over rocks.” 

Geno swore back at them in Draconic. They hit a hole the size of a pot in the road, lurching sideways. Sid looked mournfully at his half-eaten sandwich. 

Sid tugged at the canvas flap shielding the inside of the wagon and glanced up at the sky.

“It’s only been an hour and we’ve gone almost seven miles,” Sid said. “Geno! This does not feel like vehicle proficiency, you liar! Wagons are not supposed to go this fast.”

“Look on the bright side, it’s an escort mission,” Flower said. “If no one can attack us 

because we’re going too fast, that’s less work for us.”

They might even catch up with their client, Gundren, who had ridden ahead of them. All they had to do was escort Gundren and his goods to claim his inheritance. Sidney wasn’t happy about how eager Gundren had been to hire them, talking about how this was the last job they would ever need to do. If Gundren had enough money to promise them that, he should have had enough money to hire better than them. Still, normal people didn’t have huge inheritances.

Geno called out to the horses and the wagon slowed. 

“Thank Tymora,” Sid said and shoved the rest of his sandwich into his mouth.

“There’s something up ahead on the road,” Geno called out. 

“So much for running over any trouble,” Flower said and grinned. “This is more fun though.”

Sidney snorted and jumped out of the wagon, landing on the tightly packed earth. Flower climbed down after him, magic buzzing just under his skin as he prepared to fight. 

Sid reached back into the wagon and pulled out a glaive. He spun it in a tight circle, the sunlight reflecting off the eighteen-inch blade on the end.

“Let’s see what the trouble is.”

****

The trouble was three gerblins, two dead horses, and one missing dwarf. 

“We’ve lost our client,” Sidney said, sweeping his blade sharply to the side to clear it of blood. 

“Fuck,” said Flower.

“Fuck,” Geno agreed.

The gerblins they had fought didn’t have any identifying marks on them but they hadn’t bothered to hide their tracks. They must have bodily dragged Gundren with them because there was a wide, deep trail amidst all the footprints. Sidney, Flower, and Geno gathered their gear from the wagon and followed the trail to a deep cave. 

Sidney stuck his head into the cave and heard the sound of about a dozen gerblins echoing about. 

“Well, fuck.”

*****

They came upon the gerblins swiftly, if not stealthily. They would have had the element of surprise too if Geno hadn’t argued heatedly with Sid over the order of entrance into the fight. 

Flower went in first, much to his delight, and attempted the offensive magic he was so terrible at. He managed to bruise one gerblin’s cheek before they swarmed him and forced him into defense. It was good that defensive magic was his specialty because he was left to the mercy of the gerblins while Sid and Geno argued. 

“I always go last,” Sid hissed. “Tymora favors me when I go last.”

“I always go last,” Geno said, crossing his arms. “And I was in the Fighters Guild for two years before you joined the Paladin Guild.”

“I cannot believe you’re pulling seniority on me,” said Sid, outraged. 

Geno smiled smugly in a way that should have been insufferable, not insufferably attractive. 

“Stop flirting and hurry up!” Flower called.

Sid’s cheeks flushed red in what had to be outrage.

“He wasn’t flirting,” Sidney snapped and hurried after Flower, too embarrassed to look at Geno.

Geno watched him march into battle and sighed wistfully. “I’m trying.”

The gerblins’ confidence vanished as Sidney wadded into them swinging his blade and Geno crushed them with his war hammer. 

They had caught the gerblins during a meal, and the smell of roasted haunch was heavy in the air. The timing must have been a gift from Tymora because the gerblins had taken off their armor while they ate and so the fight was far easier than it should have been. The gerblins had grabbed weapons when Flower charged them, but without armor, they would need all of Tymora’s blessings to survive. But Sid was the one with the goddess of good fortune on his side and he relaxed into the familiar rhythm of battle. His muscles, tight from the wagon ride, loosened as he spun and slashed and stabbed with his glaive until he had backed up one of the last survivors into a corner. 

He reversed his glaive and knocked the gerblin unconscious with the base of his glaive, leaving it to Tymora to decide if the gerblin would wake up again. 

“Stop or I’ll kill him!” a gerblin shouted. Cold panic washed down Sid’s back and he spun around, turning to see which of his companions had been captured. 

But Geno fell into step right before him and Flower lunged in front of them both, a shield of magic thrown up between the three of them and the one surviving gerblin.

The gerblin was holding a man by his hair, an ugly, unclean knife pressed tight against his throat. 

Sid eyed the distance between them and knew he could catch him with his glaive if he could get just a step closer. This gerblin was smarter though, a leader of some sort. He had taken the time to strap on plate armor while his men died and now there was no part of him exposed for Sid’s blade. 

“Stand down or I’ll kill him,” the gerblin repeated. 

“That’s not Gundren,” Geno said.

“Yeah, we don’t know that guy,” Flower said. He shrugged and the gerblin blinked in surprise and Sidney saw his opening. 

He took one step to the side to avoid Flower and one step forward for momentum and reach. His grip shifted and he swung the blade low, scraping and sparking against the stone floor. Just as the gerblin turned to stare at him, the blade pulled free of the stone, snapping upward with enough strength and speed to slash through his armor with a crunch. 

The gerblin and the hostage crashed to the ground. Sid flipped his glaive around and inspected the blade. It would take hours to sharpen out the damage, which was why he hated resorting to that move. He used the base of his glaive to roll the gerblin off the hostage.

“Oops,” Sid said, looking down at the dead hostage. He sighed and began rummaging through the corpses’ pockets, looking for any information on Gundren’s location.

“I thought for sure you were one of those paladins who are all big on goodness and order,” Flower said, staring at the bodies as he let down his magic shield. “Clearly, you’re a lot more fun than I thought.”

Sid pulled a wrinkled bit of paper from the gerblin leader’s pocket. 

“Is that a receipt?” Flower asked. 

Apparently, even gerblin bandits had a bureaucracy and bureaucracies meant paper trails. The receipt detailed the transfer of Gundren to someone who signed with a shitty drawing of a spider. 

“Is it still a spider if there are ten legs?” Geno asked.

“I think that short leg is a tiny head,” Sid said charitably.

“Good point,” Flower said. “Is it still a spider if it has nine legs?”

*****

The location of the transfer was written at the top of the receipt, in the form of a series of directions starting from the mouth of the gerblins’ cave. It’s easy enough to follow to another system of caves, three miles deeper into the mountains.

“I hate being underground,” Flower complained. They were staring into a cavern with something suspicious dripping from the ceiling. It swelled and fell to the floor in a plop, bouncing up in a threatening way. As threatening as a large slime could be. 

“Can’t we just run around it?” Flower asked. “Or outsmart it?”

They stared at it contemplatively, but could not think of a way to outsmart it. 

“Fighting it is,” Sidney signed. 

Cutting it with a glaive only split it in half, leading to two slimes blocking their path. When Geno hit one with his hammer it splattered into five more slimes and now they really couldn’t sneak past it. 

“I’ll blast them to death,” Flower said and attempted to do just that. The magic missiles fizzled on his fingertips and did little but aggravate the surprisingly aggressive slimes. 

One of them bounced at Sid, splatting on his leg armor. The metal steamed where the slime had touched it and started to corrode. 

“Holy fuck,” Sid shouted and tried to scramble out of his armor. 

Plate armor was not meant for easy egress. Flower threw up a shield between them and the slimes while Geno lunged forward to help Sid with all the buckles holding his armor on. 

Geno was better at it than Sid was, befuddling.

“You’re really good at this,” Sid said gratefully as managed to undo the last buckle and carefully slid the armor off of his leg. Geno flushed red and turned and chucked the corroding armor away from them. 

“I could help you with the rest of it later,” Geno said but he stumbled over his words endearingly. 

“Are you actually trying to flirt with me?” Sid asked. He had thought Flower was lying or Geno was joking but maybe--

“Yes,” Geno said. “I’ll prove it.”

“What?” Sidney said but Geno was already moving. 

“We can’t slice it, we can’t hit it, so we have to use the one other form of attack,” Geno explained. “Eating.”

“Wait, what?” Flower said. Geno walked past Flower, shoulders square, grabbed one of the slimes and ate it whole as Sid and Flower stared at him in horror. The slimes also stared at him in fear.

Geno swallowed one last time and pointed his finger at the slimes.

“Try it again and you’ll end up just like your little friend,” Geno said and the slimes scattered into the cracks of the floor. 

“Tymora fucking Tymora,” Flower said, staring at Geno. “I think you’re going to die. I know you were raised by dragons but I think your digestive tract is still human.”

“I don’t feel so good,” Geno admitted, turning a little green. He sat down on the cold stone floor.

“I can handle this,” Sidney said. “I know a spell to detect poison.” He knelt down next to Geno and placed his hand on Geno’s stomach. He pulled a few dried leaves from his pocket, crushing them in his hand and concentrated hard on the spell.

“Yeah,” he said a few minutes later. “Definitely poison.”

“He ate a corrosive slime, Sid! Of course, it’s poison!” Flower said. “Don’t you know any spells that can actually help?”

“You’re the wizard!” Sid snapped back. “I can cast purify food.”

“It’s a little late for that,” Flower said. 

“The spell is going to take me two hours and a sandwich,” said Sid.

“That sounds fundamentally wrong,” Flower said. “I don’t know a lot about paladin shit but I know about spells and that seems like a high cost for purifying food.”

It was a high cost for purifying food, and it was fundamentally not how the spell was cast. Thankfully whatever damage the slime was causing to Geno’s insides was fixed with two hours of rest and a sandwich Sid found deep in his bag. 

“This has been the worst mission we’ve ever been on,” Sid said, watching Geno eat his last sandwich. 

“This is only the second mission we’ve ever been on but I absolutely agree,” Flower said. 

“I’d love to go on many more missions,” Geno said. “We can leave Flower behind next time.”

“You absolutely may not leave me behind!” Flower said.

 

*****

Instead of the cave being filled with gerblins this time, it was filled with spiders name Brian.

They weren’t the first people to reach the cave. An orcish woman with a massive crossbow was fighting with a wizard (Brian) who called himself the “Black Spider” and an actual massive black spider (Bryan).

It took all four of them to defeat the two spiders and free Gundren, who was ungrateful for his rescue. While Killian was distracted, talking to a dying Brian in a language that sounds like crackles, Gundren waved them up a tunnel.

“We’re almost to my inheritance,” Gundren said. “I’ll pay you if I get in there.”

“You’re supposed to pay us regardless,” Flower complained but Gundren didn’t seem to care. He hurried along as fast as his short legs could carry him. They kept up with him easily but there were no more spiders and/or Brians to defend against. 

The tunnel led to a pair of massive doors, the kind that looked like they should be defending something rare and precious and definitely should not be standing ajar like they were. 

The vault within was empty. The walls were all smooth black stone, not a piece of gold or copper in sight. The only thing left within the vault was a single gauntlet. It made Sidney’s skin crawl. 

“There’s something wrong with that,” Sidney warned but it was too late. Gundren lunged across the room to the last bit of his inheritance. 

The blast of fire that burst from the gauntlet blinded them. When Sid’s vision cleared, Killian there surveying the damage. 

“I told you not to wander off,” she snapped. 

“I genuinely don’t remember that,” Flower groaned. “But if you want me to bother listening, pay me.”

Speaking of pay-- “Where did our client go?” Sid asked. Killian pointed towards a Gundren shaped hole in the wall. 

“He’s headed towards Phandalin, we need to cut him off.”

“Aren’t there fantasy cops that can take care of this?” Flower complained. 

“I am the fantasy cop,” Killian said. “And I’m deputizing you three.”

*****

They super did not catch Gundren before he reached Phandalin. They tried, but Gundred was a dick and they weren’t really committed to saving him so much making sure he paid them. Turns out, they should have tried a little harder. 

“Convince him to leave town,” Killian said. 

“Yeah, no, talking really isn’t our strong suit,” Flower said. “Could we possibly bodily force him out of town?”

“Absolutely not,” Killian said. “The gauntlet could destroy the whole town if he’s aggravated.”

Negotiating went just as well as expected. They managed about one minute of talking before Gundren was shouting in the town square and Killian was screaming for them to follow her as she jumped down a well.

Sid dragged Flower with him as he jumped after her, trusting Geno to follow. 

They landed in a heap, Killian knocked unconscious beneath the weight of them all. Above them, a short burst of fire scorched the well as Gundren started to lose all control. 

“I am never working on an escort mission ever again,” Sid said. 

“It could be worse,” Geno said, his lips brushing the shell of Sid’s ear. 

“How?” Sid demanded and an explosion went off overhead. 


End file.
